IChemE prestigious safety award - Highly Commended
We are pleased to announce that our joint ABB / BP entry titled ‘The development of a comprehensive tool to achieve improved safety with regard to credible layers of protection’, received the ‘Highly Commended’ category for the recently held IChemE ‘Awards for Innovation & Excellence’ under the Health & Safety Award category.
As a brief background, this particular software tool is used to assist end users with the development of appropriate Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) and capable Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) in accordance with the requirements of the recognized international standards IEC 61508 / IEC 61511.
The TRAC (Trip Requirement and Availability Calculator) was jointly developed by ABB Engineering Services and BP UK and was based on the direct requirements for SIL determination as found within the then current version of IEC 61508.
From Left: Karl Watson ABB, Adrian Luckins, Chief Engineer BP and John Walkington ABB at the IChemE awards dinner
Through our existing close working relationships with BP, it was agreed that a collaboration of technical input and support to develop TRAC into an innovative and robust joint BP / ABB tool would be advantageous.
This arrangement would also harness the significant technical and operational history within BP to assist ABB in the corresponding user testing requirements and so endorse the key functionality as developed within the software during the delivery programme.
The TRAC functionally allows the user to determine the required Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) for a safety function. This can be done by applying either IEC risk graph or LOPA (Layer of Protective Analysis) methodologies to the hazardous scenarios that may be evident for safety, environmental or asset / production losses.